Ryan Bader hurt Valentin Moldavsky early in the fight, and while he never landed that good again, he kept his heavyweight title.
Bader (29-7 MMA, 7-2 BMMA) took a unanimous decision from Moldavsky (11-2 MMA, 6-1 BMMA) with a trio of 48-47 scores in the Bellator 273 main event. The fight was back and forth and took place largely in the clinch and wrestling exchanges. But in the end, Bader did enough to outwork Moldavsky, the interim heavyweight champ.
After his win, Bader quickly was matched up with one of his past opponents, Cheick Kongo, for a May 6 title fight in Kongo’s home city of Paris. The two fought in 2019, but the fight ended in a no contest when Kongo couldn’t continue after an accidental eye poke in the first round.
